Tuesday, March 1, 2011

The opening paragraphs are telling. It seems that the Migraine Research Foundation went into this ready to conclusively prove that morphine is bad for migraine treatment. The study results did not support that hypothesis.

Basically, the study did not prove its hypothesis but justified its existence through other interesting findings. The whole article is interesting if you're an egg-head like me. Continue to scroll down for other research projects and results if you're interested.

There will come a point in time when guidelines will state that opioids should not be prescribed for migraine treatment unless a well-managed and effective prevention regimen is also present.

What must happen before migraine treatment reaches that point:

Extensive and effective data-mining must be performed to clearly and unequivocally measure the effects of triptan usage. The data-mining must include locating the number of stroke and other cardiovascular event patients who were treated with triptans within 72 of the discovery of the event. If patients were not specifically asked about triptan usage prior to the event, that must be clearly noted as well. It must include locating the history of triptan usage by people identified as having MRI/CT lesions of people who also have migraine.

Well-designed data-mining studies must locate and clearly establish the effects of prevention regimens in patients who have opioids in their attack management plans.

These things must be kept in the forefront of the minds of everyone who has migraine, lives and works with migraineurs, studies migraine, or treats migraine:

No one has ever fallen over dead from one proper opioid dosage for migraine; however, people have fallen dead from ONE dose of a triptan

Until the effect of triptan administration on stroke and other cardiovascular patients has been thoroughly data-mined and further studied, nothing else is worth study